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There used to be a sink at that spot where this cabinet now stands. The sink was removed but the pipes, threaded rod and other fasteners that hold the sink to the wall are still there. My operations department, requested that occupational therapy help them make a cupboard. As the occupational therapist, aka me, is nice and obliging, I obliged.

I decided to make the cabinet in the Shaker style. (You all know G&G is my preferred style) Something simple that I can finish in a week (since I am leaving the company), yet nice enough for others to remember me by.

All the joints are dado joints. The frame of the door is mortise and tenon joint. The panel is booked matched and stained for contrast. If I were to improve the cabinet in future, perhaps I’ll add in a turned door knob.

I thought it was about time I got myself a new study table. The old one was a standard compressed wood one the was discarded by the person I bought my flat from.

My brief was simple. I wanted a lot of storage, since my table top is always such a mess. I need as many drawers as I could possibly have. I have a plank of Kapur left over from another project, so I just got to use that up.

I did the drawers first. The carcass was put together with proud fingerjoints. A common Greene and Greene feature. The drawer pulls were inspired by Darrel Pert. I used the design technique that Darrel shared somewhere (can’t recall where I read it). He said to look at a design for inspiration, go do something else for a week or so, then come back and design your own design. I found my drawer pull to be somewhat different from what Darrel’s, although it was easy to see where the inspiration came from. The drawers are all made of solid pine except the base. I could have put it some proud finger joints on the drawer front but didn’t. It would have been better if I did.

The table itself is of frame and panel construction. The legs are glued up pieces, really bulky. They are too thick in proportion to the top. To make them appear slimmer, without compromising strength, I shaped the two exposed sides to a slight convex. The panels are pine wood stained elbony and then sanded down. They got the cloud lift design. I felt that this would give it some contrast to the frame but still blend it with the frame.

The table top is Kapur wood framed by pine. I also installed a keyboard drawer so that the height of the keyboard fits my body.

Just finished a stand for an electric keyboard. It’s made of recycled lumber from a crate, so material cost is less than $10 for some varnish, stain, and sandpaper.

Someone donated a keyboard with a broken stand to the nursing home. My executive director simply asked if I could repair the stand. I couldn’t resist the urge to build a new one.

The vertical post are 4 pieces of lumber glued together with miter joints, the kind that was used in Stickly furniture. The feet of the stand are actually simple boxes. Because of the Stickly design, I am able to threat the wire for the pedals through the hollow post, making the entire thing look a little neater.

As I said, the wood came from a crate. This explains the large number of knots in pine, but it adds character.

This stand was dyed elbony and finished with 5 coats of rubbing varnish. The patients I was working with learned how to make wooden pegs, peg screw holes and trim them flush, sanding, dye the wood and use rub on varnish.

I was inspired to do a wash basin for my toilet for quite some time already. I made the side, a little bit of the top; various parts were lying in my workshop at various degree of completion. The kick in the butt came when my neighbor living on the floor below me complained that my toilet floor was leaking. I needed to hack previous sink for the renovation.I can’t be living without a sink in the toilet, so I had to get my act together to finish this piece of art.

This piece is made of Burmese teak, which I read is used to make boats. The cabinet and doors are frame and panel construction. The joints are glued with titebond 3 and held with screws which are then covered by Ebony square pegs. Ebony square pegs are a hallmark of Green and Greene furniture design. The sink is actually a square box with proud finger joints. The sink sits on a flat top with breadboard end on one side to keep everything flat, Because of the urgency that I needed this piece of furniture, I did not do any cloud lift. The entire piece is finished with 3 layers of epoxy.

As some of you who follow this blog of mine already know, I’m working in a psychiatric nursing facility. No, I’m not a nurse. I’m an occupational therapist. One of the most beautiful things about my job is that I can do woodworking (a hobby that I truly love) and get paid for it.

The idea came for a nativity scene during one of the welfare committee meetings and as you probably guessed, I was tasked to make one. Buying one would be too expensive for the charitable nursing home.

I found templates for the figurines on the internet and started to design something based on silhouette concept. I worked with my patients to paste the template on the wood, saw it out with a scroll saw, sand it and finally finished it with a coat of varnish.

My director thought I salvage the base from someone’s table top and was surprised that it came from rough sawn lumbar. After the nativity scene was displayed, my patients gathered around the display for tea and to admire their handy work.

Clamping stiles to clamp the workpiece using F clamp. Can’t afford a vice

Front view

Crosssaw sled

This machine workbench came about when I needed a workbench at my workplace. My boss’s instruction was simply not to spend too much money.

I figured that I needed something to saw with. So the best thing I could do with the limited budget and space was to overturn a circular saw. Then sanding was a dusty affair as there’s no dust collection system so I designed a sanding table in as well. I couldn’t afford a vice to clamp my stuff so I simply added two stiles where I could F clamp my work to. I sometimes have long pieces so a table extension was also needed. The entire thing is on wheels and allow some form of extra storae.

Well, that’s what I use in my assistive technology workshop. It’s a small lift lobby outside a storeroom as you’ll see from the photos above.

This prototype will be used in my workshop. It is the prototype for an outdoor stool and table set where two persons can sit down in the evening to chat and have tea. A few lessons can be drawn from the prototype.

The seat is 50cm high (approx 1’8″ high) which may be a little too high for people who are shorter.

The size of the seat at 1 foot seem comfortable.

The legs should extend beyond its circumference to improve stability.

Holes drilled to fasten the seat the the frame needs better consideration. It should be farther away from the post to allow for an electric drill to work the screws. This time, I had to screw it in by hand.

Proud finger joint. I got lazy and omited the square pegs. Will put them in when I feel like it.

In the grand scheme of things

This is a Greene and Greene inspired wall cabinet which I use to house my tools.

I built this with the intention of practicing for a bathroom medicine cabinet. After I built this, I soon realised that it may not be practical for a medicine cabinet. Firstly, I don’t quite like the idea of placing wet toothbrushes inside a cabinet. Secondly, while the mirror is quite big in size (so that I can still see the top half of my body should I grow fat), it cannot be too low down near the tap. So this design and size would probably not do if it’s intended for a medicine cabinet.

Like my other pieces of furniture, I use Kapur wood. The carcass is a meter long while the breath is about 60 centemeters wide. The joints for the carcass is proud finger joints in line with the Greene and Greene theme. They are held by glue and screws. Rightfully, the screw heads are hidden by pegs; but since this is workshop furniture, I got lazy and put off doing the pegs. The shelves are dadoed into the sides. The carcass is held up by wooden bars that are screwed to the top and bottom via pocket holes. These wooden bars are then screwed to the wall.

The shape of the door rails were cut onto plywood to make a template. The wood was then routed on a router table. The rails are held in the stilts with mortise and tennon joinery. To make it stronger, screws are driven into the rails from the sides of the stiles. These are then covered with dowels.

A plywood pannel with white PVC is fitted into the door held by dado. This can be replaced by a mirror in place of the plywood.

A chisel and screw driver rack was then fabricated and fixed into the cupboard. I placed the entire cupboard onto adjustable supports before screwing it to the wall. A sprit level mskes the task more accurate.

Please feel free to leave any comments you like. It helps me learn, and for your benefit, most would agree that teaching others is the best way to learn. So do participate. Type in a line or two, so this blog would be more useful to those who visit.

I made this workbench sometime last year or the year before. The bench is made from solid Kapur wood. It measures 4 feet wide and 2 feet across. The top is a solid top with 3/4 dog holes to hold pieces for planning.

The legs are 10 centimeters by 15 centimeters thick giving it a really heavy base. There was a mistake on one of the legs and I tried to save money by gluing up 6 pieces of smaller timber to make up the thickness. The glue up was A LOT lighter than the solid piece.

The legs are held together by mortise and tennon joinery. There are 2 rails on each side. The one at the bottom is done in mortise tennon. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to do M&T in a 6 inch piece of wood. So for the top, I cut a dado and then glue and screw the rail there.

The two ends are held by another mortise and tennon at the back. This one is not glued. It would allow the bench to be taken apart.

The top is held to the legs with M&T. The top was simply dropped down. Using this construction, the bench can be taken apart and transported in 3 pieces: The top, the two sides and the back rail. I was hoping that one day I can have a real studio workshop doing my hobby as